


Walk on Water or Drown

by etcetera_kit



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 03:50:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9159376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etcetera_kit/pseuds/etcetera_kit
Summary: If anything was going to bring his brother and said brother's angel together, grindylow was as good as anything.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hit_the_books](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hit_the_books/gifts).



> Happy Holidays! Thanks to the wolf pack for beta reading. Hope you enjoy ze grindylow! :)

**Walk on Water or Drown**   
_Saying ‘play me a song, it’s been too long since I’ve heard you sing…’_

Sam would forever be amazed that a random case involving grindylow—grindylow, of all things!—was what finally brought his idiot brother and said brother’s angel together. Grindylow? That was straight out of Defense Against the Dark Arts from Harry Potter. Like any number of things, Sam thought they didn’t exist. The entire legend went:

_Haunting pools and bogs, this malicious water spirit of the northern counties of England lures children to their death by drowning. It serves as a warning to unwary children not to venture too close to water._

Seriously. That was the entire legend. Granted, more mythical creature and folklore authors expanded on the concept, including what the grindylow looked like and how to avoid or defeat them. (Turns out Harry Potter was not that far off when the books wrote about breaking a grindylow’s grip to get away from them. Hunters never stopped at just getting away from a creature, for the most part, so they learned quickly that cutting arms off prevented a grindylow from grabbing prey so they lurked at the bottom of a lake until death from starvation. Not the cleanest thing, but still, saving kids versus something at the bottom of the lake? Sam would take saving kids any day.)

So they heard about mysterious drowning deaths of kids in a small town in Texas, and packed up the car and drove off. Four kids had drowned over a two week span. The kids had weird restraint marks around their wrists and ankles, and their bodies were found at the bottom of the local lake, weighted down with rocks. Local authorities thought a pedophile or serial killer was to blame, which made them passing as FBI agents easier than usual. (Everyone thought someone else called the Feds, when in fact, no one had called the Feds.) The marks on the wrists and ankles is what flagged the case as supernatural for Sam—the marks looked like someone had grabbed them tightly, but human hands would not leave perfect circles and one person would not be able to grab all four limbs, unless they were working as a team. And the marks were a little too perfect to be typical restraints, like handcuffs or rope or the like. The coroner thought tentacles were to blame, but then retracted that statement as nothing with tentacles lived in their freshwater lake.

Pretty standard stuff for them.

Nothing was really weird until the first night in their anonymous motel, when Cas showed up. Not that Cas showing up was weird in and of itself—the angel hung around pretty regularly. He and Dean seemed to have put their purgatory crap behind them and were awkward friends again. 

Sam had been hunched over his laptop, looking up the families of the victims, and Dean had just gotten back from a beer and food run. Cas appeared in the room with a slight whoosh. 

Dean visibly jumped. “Dammit, Cas,” he swore. “You need a bell.”

Cas frowned. “Why would I need that?”

“So I know when you just appear somewhere!”

“But you see me. So why would you need sound and sight?”

“Because you sneak up on me!”

Cas just continued to frown. Dean looked exasperated. 

“So what’s up, Cas?” Sam asked.

The angel walked over to the table and sat down in the chair across from Sam. “You two are looking into the children’s deaths in this town?”

Sam nodded.

“Good. It’s grindylow.”

“What?” Sam asked, while at the same time Dean said, “The hell is that?”

“Grindylow,” Cas repeated, no change in expression. “They should not be outside of northern England. I have neutralized them. We need to find what brought them here.”

“Neutralized?” Dean was the one frowning this time.

“Grindylow can be neutralized by removing their limbs.”

Dean blinked. “You removed their limbs?”

“Yes.”

“Awesome.”

“Dean,” Sam said in a warning tone. Dean mostly just lived for self-loathing and alcohol, but every so often he began to remind Sam a little too much of some hunters they’d known, the ones that liked killing things a little too much. Their goal was to save lives, not get trophies for the wall.

Dean glared at him for a moment, before focusing his attention back on Cas. “So any leads on what brought them here?”

“Several, but they have warded against angels, so I cannot locate them.”

“You have an approximate location?”

Cas nodded.

“Okay. Let’s go for a ride.”

Dean grabbed his jacket and paused by Cas before leaving the room. He gave the angel a concerned look and gently squeezed his shoulder, before pushing out of the motel room door towards the Impala. Cas’ stoic expression softened momentarily at the touch from Dean.

Now Sam frowned.

The case went from grindylow to grindylow smuggling with no warning, and Dean was being weird around Cas. Well, weirder than usual. For years, Sam had known that Cas had some kind of special affection for Dean that he did not have for Sam or anyone else, really. Whether that affection stemmed from trying to convince Dean to become Michael’s vessel or dragging Dean out of Hell or spending almost a year in Purgatory together, the bottom line was that Cas viewed Dean as a friend and everyone else was just kind of there.

Sam was okay with that. He knew Cas would help him out in a bind and that Cas cared about him in a weird, distant angel kind of way. But if Cas had been human and Dean met him in school or on a hunt, Sam could easily see Dean taking Cas under his wing. (Since Cas was an angel and incredibly powerful, Dean mostly realized he could take care of himself.)

Tracking the demon to an old farmhouse on the edge of town was not a problem. The place was clearly warded against angels and a number of other things. (Seems that the demons smuggling grindylow wanted to cover their tracks for some reason or another.)

No, things got weird again when they were sitting in the car outside the farmhouse. Sam was volun-told to go walk the perimeter and see if there was any movement (or something that would give them a clue how to enter the farmhouse.) When he got back from an extremely uneventful casing, he stopped walking quickly as he approached the car. Cas was sitting in the front seat and Dean was leaning close to him. They were clearly talking furiously about something, and Dean was weirdly looking at Cas like he did at women he picked up in bars or on Tinder or wherever. 

The windows in the car were down, so Sam could hear part of the conversation as he approached.

“I don’t see what the issue is, Dean,” Cas was saying.

“It’s me,” Dean replied, voice low and rough. “Not you. I can’t—“

“Why are you still so concerned with what other people think?”

“I’m not!” Dean protested. “And I want the same thing, but I’m too damn old for…” And then whatever Dean mumbled next was too soft for Sam to hear.

At the time, Sam had actually been a little surprised, because their conversation sounded like a ‘let’s discuss our relationship’ conversation, which was weird. Dean was hyper-heterosexual and Sam had never seen him even express interest in another man. But Cas was… Cas. The two of them had been through things Sam could not imagine (even though the cage gave him a pretty good idea), so maybe the idea was not completely far-fetched. 

Sam purposely walked with more noise. The conversation ceased immediately. Cas zapped himself back into the backseat of the car.

They ended up going into the backdoor of the farmhouse, breaking enough of the angel sigils for Cas to get in, and running into some hench-demons. By the time they got to the main demon, Cas had him against the ropes, figuratively speaking of course.

Turned out that the grindylow, of all things, were part of some exotic pet import business that the demons were trying to start up. Never mind that grindylow killed children and really could not be controlled. But apparently, according to the weird demon group, grindylow looked cool, so there was a market for getting them out of northern England. And apparently some demons were big Harry Potter fans and wanted to recreate the final exam from book three. (Seriously. Sam could not make this shit up.)

Whatever the case, Cas disappeared with the demon.

They trudged out of the farmhouse and back to the car. They were quiet as they pulled away from the house and back towards the highway.

“You know, Dean,” Sam said. “It’s okay. I’m okay with it.”

Dean gave him a sharp sideways look. “Okay with what?”

“You and Cas.”

“Me and Cas what?”

Sam let out a long breath. Dean really was going to make him spell things out.

“You and Cas have been through a lot together. It would make sense if you both wanted to be together. In a relationship. Whatever.” He paused. “The point is, I don’t care. I just want you to be happy.”

Dean looked like he was about the protest, but thought better. He just let out a long breath. “I know you won’t care. I think Cas is trying to force the issue because he wants another excuse to not go back to Heaven.”

“You really think that?”

“No. He can come up with a million other excuses not to go back. He doesn’t need to be with me to have something plausible.”

“So what’s the problem?”

Dean shook his head. “Me,” he replied simply. “I’ve never been with a guy, and Cas is, you know, Cas. What if I fuck everything up?”

Sam shrugged. “You might. But then again, you might now. And you’ll never know if you keep pushing him away.”

Dean glanced at him again before turning his attention back to the road. “You’re really okay with all of this?”

“It’s fine, Dean. Just go be happy.”

And of this was thanks to freaking grindylow of all things.

Also, Cas might have talked to Sam about it right before the case. Dean didn’t need to know that.

Now, they were back at the Men of Letters bunker and Sam knew that Cas was around, but he wasn’t going to go find them. Whatever they were doing in Dean’s room, he didn’t want to know about. But Dean and Cas were good together, and seemed to be good for each other. Dean was drinking less, eating a little better, and generally seemed less anxious and like he didn’t hate himself quite as much as he used to. 

And all because of grindylow.

Fin.   
26 December 2016


End file.
